SPIDER-MAN 3
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
Much like Peter Parker's dalliance with dark matter (both figuratively and literally) in Spider-Man 3, director Sam Raimi has been dancing non-stop with an ever-growing monster for the past six years or so. It should come as no surprise to learn it finally got the best of him, nor should it shock that at his weakest moment he's allowed his trademark slapstick goofiness to effectively derail this film when it should have been chugging along to the finish line. Raimi's one of my favorite directors, so it pains me to see him screw up, but while Spider-Man 3 isn't a disaster per se, it is a major disappointment.
From the beginning of his career (and probably even before that), Raimi's desire has been to make Three Stooges films, yet strangely he's consistently found himself operating in just about every genre but lowbrow comedy (Crimewave being the sole exception). It was his bizarre injections of Larry-Curly-Moe antics into such things as demonic horror films that made experiences like Evil Dead such a hoot. After settling down with the sublime A Simple Plan, I felt confident that he could continue delivering solid dramas without the crutch of extreme silliness. Yet watching his dramatic films can be like watching your kid play football – you hope he makes the touchdown, but you know deep inside he might trip over his shoelaces at any minute.
Spider-Man 2 had me worried a few times. It's not as if the comic book sources were loaded with heaviness – in fact, part of their draw was that Peter Parker maintained a light-hearted wisecracking demeanor in spite of all of his personal traumas. But at times during the second film (especially the opening), it felt like Raimi was trying to make it too funny. He held it together in the long run, but I wish I could say the same for this third entry. To be fair, the comedic antics aren't the only problems with this film. Another big issue is a weak script that bites off more than it can chew and then sloppily jams the pieces together, never working hard enough to make them truly fit.
At the beginning of this installment, Spidey/Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) is reveling in his alter-ego's smashing success. His redheaded muse Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has advanced her acting ambitions to include singing, and the film opens with her belting out a retro torch song against a backdrop of a night sky (presaging the terror about to arrive from space shortly thereafter). Life is peachy for everyone involved, save for James Franco's vendetta-minded Harry Osborn, still seething with rage over Spider-Man's perceived murder of his father Norman – aka The Green Goblin. Harry quickly undergoes the same transformation by green mist that gave his father superhuman skills whilst driving him insane at the same time.
The following battle between the Green Goblin Jr. and Spider-Man is one of those overloaded CGI action-fests that waffles between genius and remedial school. Many of the shots literally appear as if panels from a comic book have leapt to life, while others look sloppy and are hard to follow. Too many moments betray their green-screened origins, and fail to convince. In this case it feels as though the filmmakers were dead set on pushing the envelope as far as it could go in an effort to best the previous two films. They could have used a little discretion it seems, since the payoff isn't always worth it.
After the initial battle royale, Harry suffers a convenient bump on the noggin' that returns him to the super-smiley young man from the beginning of the first film. Parker is more than willing to accept this as the final solution to their troubles, but it's hard to enjoy Osborn's return to form since he didn't actually earn it. Then I remembered that since he'd already experienced the business end of a gigantic blast of mutating Hulk flatulence, he's locked into an inevitable spiral into madness just like his father. I thought it would be an interesting allegory on people having to endure their loved ones' suffering from Alzheimer's, but in essence the time spent with 'nice' Goblin is just time wasted. When Willem Dafoe returns as the specter of Norman Osborn to remind his son that he's "Kept his eye off the ball for too long", he might as well be speaking to the scriptwriters (in this case, it's Sam and brother Ivan Raimi working with Spider-Man 2 scribe Alvin Sargent). And shame on them for lacking the skills to properly wrap up the Harry subplot. Having absolutely no idea what to do, they drop in a random butler to take care of everything. It's maddening, and very shoddy craftsmanship.
If one villain wasn't enough, don't worry – there are plenty more. Too many, in fact. Thomas Haden Church plays Flint Marko (aka The Sandman) to a 'T', strutting around in a tight-fitting green striped shirt and looking like he's stepped right out of a vintage issue of The Amazing Spider-Man from way back when. Raimi's comfort with the older elements of these stories is one of his assets – he's adept at mixing the classic stories with more modern Spider-Man lore. (He still calls movies 'pictures' for crying out loud!) But whereas the Sandman starts out strong, his character never gets to carry through on that initial promise. He escapes from prison early on, and breaks into his old home to see his ailing daughter (and a squandered Theresa Russell as his baby-mama). Unfortunately, much of this drama is never capitalized on, and the 'sick daughter' routine is just there to make everybody feel sorry for the sandy bugger. He's an accidental villain, and it's hard to cheer for his demise when he's only trying to do good by his family.
His transformation from Flint Marko into the Sandman (by silicon implants?) is one of those gimmicky moments of classic comic book pseudo science, but once again Raimi is the man to make it work. These CG moments are done rather well, and at least the character is impressive to watch even though he's not all that menacing in the long run. And then the script strikes again, with an annoying element that was already leaked in the trailers – that Marko was the man who actually killed Ben Parker (Cliff Robertson) in the first film and not the hood who was initially thought to have perpetrated the crime.
For one, the police apparently knew this all along and even convicted Marko of the crime, yet never notified the victim's family of this development. Secondly, it's trashy writing that destroys the impact of the first film's dramatic arc. It's done to put Peter in a particular head space necessary for his ‘turn to the dark side', but to do so by cannibalizing what made the previous film great is a bad, bad move. We're then asked to care just as much this time around, even though we know we're being played. Sadly, they had the fuel to achieve the same effect within their grasp, yet chose not to use it.
That fuel being Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy, the blond alternative to Mary Jane who arrived in the vintage comics to screw with Peter Parker's raging hormones. She's a classmate of Peter's, and being the daughter of New York Police Captain George Stacy (James Cromwell, hopefully less corrupt here than he was in LA Confidential) she also gets to present Spidey with a public ceremony after he saves her life during an overly digital looking high-rise crane disaster. This scene is pretty fun, and when Spider-Man arrives to mug for cameras while hanging upside-down on his web and giving thumbs-up signs, it mirrors the spirit of the source material remarkably. Unfortunately, Pete lets Little-Spidey do his thinking for him, and he encourages Gwen to re-enact 'the kiss' that he and Mary Jane shared in the first film. This riles Pete's proper girlfriend, but she's also irked by the fact that his star is steadily eclipsing her own. And hey, wouldn't you know it – 'nice' Harry Osborn just happens to be hanging around, eager to make sloppy omelets for Mary Jane while he's not telling her about romantic plays he'd written for her back in high school.
Gwen is also tied to Eddie Brock, Topher Grace's odious Peter Parker doppelganger, an ambitious photog looking to score a desk job at the Daily Bugle, even if it means photoshopping his way to the top. Fan fave J.K. Simmons returns as the blowhard editor J. Jonah Jameson, and most of his scenes are a delight – I particularly enjoyed him having to pay off a little girl for her disposable camera during the grand finale. Brock announces that Gwen is his girlfriend, but apparently they only went on one date together. She then randomly arrives in Peter's life at inopportune times, and spoils a dinner during which Parker had planned to propose to Mary Jane with his Aunt's wedding ring. Evil Dead fans will surely giggle with glee at Bruce Campbell's turn as a helpful 'French' maitre d'.
Through some tangled plot machinations, the relationship between Pete and Mary Jane falls on the rocks, leaving the former open to heaping helpings of angst and more angst. It's then when the symbiotic alien life-force (from space!) strikes, adhering to the man and morphing his Spider-suit into the black alternative we were originally introduced to twenty years ago. Yet again, the execution of this device fails to thrill. Obviously, the writers couldn't adapt the origin as it appeared in the comics, since it was tied to an overlong multi-cast off-world adventure called The Secret Wars. However, with hints dropped in the previous film regarding one character's business as an astronaut, one would think that thread would have been fully capitalized on. No such luck. While Parker and Watson are stargazing on a web-hammock in Central Park, a meteorite impacts nearby. Yeah, just like we've seen in countless other films. The inky black material slithers free of the molten rock and attaches itself to Pete's bike, waiting silently for the right moment to attack.
This brings us back to the angst. Once Parker's life goes down the tubes, the parasite latches on, causing him to wear eyeliner and comb his hair down messily, becoming AFI-der Man! (Or was it 30 Seconds to Spidey? My Arachnid Romance? Webout Boy?) Dylan Baker returns yet again as Parker's professorial idol Dr. Curt Connors (who may turn into The Lizard someday), and after researching the alien material he consistently urges Parker not to come into further contact with it. Unfortunately, the new 'suit' has sunk its hooks into Pete, even though there is no apparent power upgrade involved. He mentions that it feels different, but all we see is that he can flip, leap, shoot webs and stick to surfaces – all things he could do already!
The black material has more impact on his personal life, and a la Jerry Mitchell from Three O'Clock High, he suddenly becomes a ladies man, whispering steamy innuendos into Betty Brant's ear and getting panties all in a bunch with just an eye-shadowed stare. The dudes he's less friendly towards. He berates his kindly Russian slumlord. He slams Brock into a massive picture frame and destroys the kid's future with one fell swoop. After a great battle with Sandman in an ancient subway system, he delights in pulverizing the granular lunk into mud with a blast from a water main. (Evil Dead fans again will take delight in the traditional Raimi zoom-editing as the rivets on the pipe pop one by one.)
And then the whole thing falls apart and officially lost me in the process. Raimi wants to play the 'Peter Darker' character from every possible angle, and never allows the audience to tap into one solid emotion. Right after he revels in the ladies man image, he unveils a dorky scene in which Peter dances down the street (to the music in his head apparently, since I didn't spy an iPod on his person) while women pedestrians give him disgusted looks. This overlong Saturday Night Fever segment ruins some of the ancillary jokes that are actually funny (i.e. Jameson being forced into publishing an official apology to Spider-Man for the first time).
But that's not even the webbing on the cake. Shortly thereafter, Peter purposefully brings Gwen on a date to the Jazz bar where Mary Jane now works as a singing waitress, thanks to a swift firing from her Broadway gig following a rash of bad reviews. The dynamics of this scene have the potential to be strong, but once Mary Jane sees Gwen in the room, the film suddenly thinks it's The Mask . Apparently, the alien symbiote gives its host impressive ivory-tickling skills, for Parker suddenly lurches onto stage to rip into a roaring piano solo before Mary Jane can begin her caterwauling. But wait, it gets worse.
He then indulges in a remarkably dopey dance routine involving chairs, the bar top and a smooth sliding stop that actually sends a breeze through Gwen's hair due to its awesome dorky power! Imagine watching an X-Men movie and then randomly seeing Wolverine perform the Yazz Flute scene from Anchorman. That's pretty much what you get here. At least Raimi drew the line there and skipped Parker taking Gwen 'to Pleasure Town' in an animated sequence. The scene pretty much ruins the movie, and it never fully recovers.
Fans have been waiting for Venom, but he's a one-note villain and once he arrives he gets old fast. Unfortunately, the script never allows the 'suit as heroin' allegory to thrive, and it could have used a few scenes with Peter realizing he's in over his head and trying to 'kick' the parasite to no avail. Likewise, the creature's distaste for sound waves was played the wrong way, and while Peter does tear the matter off in a tolling bell tower just like in the comics, the sonic assault on the creature at first goes unnoticed by Parker, and merely serves as fodder for an avenue to best the villain later. And even though the film establishes that at this point Brock has been following Peter, the script weakly has him appear randomly at the exact same church where the 'exorcism' is taking place – conveniently positioning him for usurping by the entity now in dire need of a new host.
Venom isn't as big as he was in the comics, and unfortunately most of the time his demonic-lizard visage is peeled away so that Topher Grace can have more time chewing up the scenery with his funny-looking sharp teeth. At first the decision makes sense, as Spider-Man needs to know who his adversary is, but after that there's not enough to please the fans. The final showdown with the super-villain team up of Venom and Sandman (again, this pairing is thrown together rather hastily) isn't anywhere near as inspiring as it should be. Mary Jane plays the damsel in distress yet again (and almost gets impaled by an Impala – how ironic!), and the bulk of the action takes place in the humdrum been-there-done-that atmosphere of an unfinished construction site. The wrap-up with Sandman in particular is the biggest head scratcher, and for all of the gee-whiz imagery flashing before your eyes, it's too hard to actually get involved emotionally at this point. You find yourself sitting there passively, waiting for the ride to end.
In the 70's the death of Gwen Stacy was the comic-book equivalent of 'the shot heard round the world'. It's been a plague on Peter Parker's noodle ever since. Instead of re-inventing the death of Ben Parker as a shoddy way of moving Peter into a particular headspace, the script should have capitalized on her presence and developed their relationship earlier on in the story. Gwen's demise at the hands of one of the villains would have serviced the story well, and Parker still would have been hungry for revenge. Oh, and we would have cared to boot!
Apparently they're saving her character arc for a future film (even though none of the parties involved seem to know if they want to return at this point), but you don't save all your pennies for retirement when the roof of your house is collapsing now. Spider-Man 3 is entertaining enough for its overstuffed two hour twenty minute running time, but it could have been so much more. It could have been what the trailers were promising. Spider-Man's arc has always been comparable to a biblical template in that Peter's struggles are rooted in the push-pull nature of balancing the wholly divine (Spidey) and the wholly human (Parker). Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) rolls into frame every so often to remind us of this, but a lot of this plot fodder is ultimately squandered by an overall lack of focus.
Raimi dabbles in the dark side of Spidey, but he's never comfortable enough with the subject matter to take it seriously. I should have listened to (Spider-Man 1 & 2 composer) Danny Elfman when he bailed on the project, stating Raimi had turned into a Venom himself - out of touch with what once made him great. I think it's time to take a much needed break from the spider and make a cheap Evil Dead sequel instead.